INTRODUCTION.
LOS Bandos de Verona Montescos y
Capeletes," has been bracketed by Shakespearian commentators with another
Spanish play, the "Castelvines y Monteses" of Lope de Vega, as illustrative
of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet; the author, Francisco
de Rojas y Zorrilla, has certainly to some extent availed
himself of the Italian tradition dramatized by Shakespeare, but has ignored the tragic aspect of the history of
the hapless lovers of Verona, whom he marries in the end,
and makes happy ever afterwards.
Rojas succeeded Lope de Vega as a writer for the stage; being in his thirtieth year, and one of the most popular dramatists of the day, when that distinguished "Phoenix of the geniuses" died. Rojas penned a mortuary sonnet of average merit on the occasion of Lope's decease.
